


The Narrow Way

by Sorrel



Series: somewhere i have never travelled [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bickering as Flirting, F/M, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 16:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12324648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel/pseuds/Sorrel
Summary: If Thorin thought that a single night of shared peace would be enough to dethorn Bree's prickly temper, he's soon to learn the error of his ways.  But in truth, he wouldn't know what to do with their burglar if she wasn't arguing with him at every turn—and as he's soon to discover, hardship has a way of binding even the most unlikely of souls together.  There's plenty of that to be found on the road to Erebor, and as their quest leads them deep into the wildlands of the east, the quarrelsome pair will have a chance to forge their temporary truce into something far greater.After all, as Old Took used to say:cats have claws and roses have thorns, but both are worth the risk.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have the second chapter of this done except for final edits, and the third chapter... somewhat less done. We'll see how it goes!

_Believe not those who say_  
_The upward path is smooth,_  
_Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way,_  
_And faint before the truth._

_It is the only road_  
_Unto the realms of joy;_  
_But he who seeks that blest abode_  
_Must all his powers employ._

_Bright hopes and pure delights_  
_Upon his course may beam,_  
_And there, amid the sternest heights_  
_The sweetest flowerets gleam._

_On all her breezes borne,_  
_Earth yields no scents like those;_  
_But he that dares not grasp the thorn_  
_Should never crave the rose._

-"The Narrow Way," Anne Brontë.

###### 

The first night after leaving Rivendell, Thorin calls a halt at the first likely-looking campsite he can find, well before sunset. It’s just a small copse of trees at the forest’s edge, densely clustered and with a great deal of prickly underbrush, but it serves well enough to keep them out of view for any stray elves that might happen to wander by in the night. And in truth, anyplace where they can lay their heads is more than good enough, just now. They’ve been on the march since midnight, and judging by the carousing he heard coming from their balcony, he doubts very much that any of them were abed when Gandalf’s warning came through.

He certainly wasn’t.

They can’t risk a fire at night, not with them still so close to Elrond’s borders, but for a wonder, no one seems inclined to complain—not even their burglar, who can usually be counted on to make her opinions regarding meals known loudly and often. They all lay out their bedrolls, grumbling only a little at the scratch of the greenery, and sit clustered together as the sun sets, gnawing tiredly on cold cheese and bread taken from supper the night before and talking sometimes in low voices but mostly not at all. Dwalin divides up the watches between the most experienced travellers among them, leaving the others to catch up on their sleep while they can. They won’t always be able to be so generous, Thorin knows, but today, at least, they’ve asked more than enough.

Thorin takes the first watch alone, over Dwalin’s half-hearted protests. Any leader who’ll ask of others what they won’t do themselves is undeserving of the name, and even Dwalin can’t deny that he’s more used to hard travel than most among their number. Fili and Kili, who’ve ridden the caravans since they were tall enough to seat a pony and have the advantage of youthful enthusiasm besides, will take the dog’s watch in the middle, since of them all they can most afford the interrupted sleep. They’ll wake Dwalin and Nori a few hours before dawn.

The camp has been abed for the better part of an hour, and Thorin is halfway through the pipe he’s smoking in an increasingly futile attempt to stave off his body’s cry for sleep, when he feels a slight weight settle next to him on the fallen log he’s using as a seat. He didn’t hear Bree leave the dubious comfort of her bedroll nor pick her way from the center of the camp where Fili and Kili firmly bundled her, but there she is regardless, perched awkwardly on the log with one knee curled to her chest and her other foot pressed to the earth for balance. Her blanket is wrapped around her shoulders like a cloak, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see her little dinner-knife of a sword still belted about her waist, the hilt sticking up somewhere around her ribs.

He takes the pipe from his mouth and wordlessly offers it up. She takes it and draws smoke into her lungs, slow and steady, then exhales in a loose, trickling stream and hands it back, the tense line of her shoulders already softening. When he takes it between his teeth again, he imagines he can feel the warmth of her lips around the stem.

“You’re the last one I’d expect to be out of your bed just now.”

She gives him an annoyed look for that, hunching her blanket higher around her shoulders. "I think I'm actually too exhausted to fall asleep,” she grumbles, keeping her voice low to match his. “Is that a thing that happens?"

She does look a little bruised around the eyes, and her cheeks seem sort of... pinched, somehow. It has the unwelcome effect of making her look even more fragile than usual. "I’ve never heard of it, but who knows what odd things you halflings do."

She merely rolls her eyes, rather than snapping back at him as he more than half-expects. "That word's a little insulting, you know."

"What? 'Halfling?'" 

"We're hobbits, Master Oakenshield, grown exactly to the size we ought. Not 'half' of anything."

She’s got her nose in the air again, he’s amused to note, though the effect is somewhat ruined by the way she’s clenching her jaw against a yawn. “Good to know.”

She casts him a sideways look. “So that when you use it, I’ll know you’re doing it a-purpose?”

Laughter’s as good as admitting her victory, and he’d never give her the satisfaction. “Aye, something like that.”

“Impossible dwarf.”

“Infuriating halfling,” he says, determinedly not smiling, and hands her the pipe.

They sit and smoke for some minutes more, passing the pipe back and forth between them and silently competing to see who can do the best or farthest smoke-rings. Eventually, after her latest effort goes sideways and tangles itself in a bit of brush, she lets out a sigh and says, “Do you think the ponies will be alright?”

He takes another puff of his pipe. “Better than they’d be in a troll’s belly.” He tilts his head back and sends off his biggest smoke-ring yet, which drifts neatly over the heads of their companies and comes to hover over Kili’s ear, at least until his nephew swats sleepily at it as he rolls over. “We weren’t that far from the Great Road. Likely some entrepreneurial spirit in a caravan will be more than glad to claim a few extra for his herd.”

“I suppose.”

She doesn’t sound very enthused at the prospect. “Better, too, than most they’d find here in the mountains,” he tells her. “I’ve been the way Balin is taking us, once or twice. It’s less a road than a goat track some courageous soul marked with trail sign. We’d have to set them loose in the foothills, and then what would happen to them?”

She scowls at him. “If you’re trying to comfort me, Master Oakenshield, you’re doing a very poor job of it.”

“I’m not here for your comfort, Mistress Baggins,” he says, and hands her the pipe. “If that’s your aim, you’re in the wrong place.”

She takes it and turns it over in her hands for a moment, and he can see the thought on her face as clear as if she’d shouted it: _I’ve been in the wrong place ever since I left home._

But she doesn’t say it aloud, any more than the other dozens of times he’s caught her thinking it. Just takes the pipe and sets it between her teeth, and with her lungful of smoke she blows a series of small, tight rings that twist into new shapes as they rise, little stars and spirals that drift off, into the trees and out of sight.

She grins at him as she passes him back the pipe. “Your move, sir.”

“You’ve been taking lessons from Gandalf,” he accuses.

“Perhaps. Does that mean I win?”

“Just give me a moment,” he says, but he makes no move to draw from his pipe again, leaving it smouldering in his palm. She smiles to herself and looks away, turning her pale little face to the faint spill of moonlight breaking through the trees.

Guilt squirms like snakes in his belly, and he knows what his honor demands.

“I should have-” He stops, clears his throat. “I should have asked, before we left. There wasn’t the time.”

She blinks and seems to come back to herself, looking at him with a sideways smile. “Well, this sounds passing serious. If you’re about to propose, Master Oakenshield, I have to warn you that you performed _quite_ well, but alas, my heart remains quite my own.”

He glares at her, ignoring the flush that threatens to crawl up the back of his neck. “That’s not what I was going to ask.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” she says brightly, and looks all too pleased with herself when the intensity of his glower increases. “Nothing personal, of course. So if not that, then what was it you were after?”

“Is there any chance that you’re…” He has to say it. He can’t say it, not with her expectant gaze fixed on his face. He gestures, instead, vaguely towards her midsection. “You know.”

“Hungry?” she tries, but her eyes are twinkling. “Yes, but that’s nothing new, you dwarves remain confoundedly disinterested in proper meals.”

“ _Bearing,_ ” he finally spits out, because he knows well enough when he’s being teased. “I know not much of the ways of hobbits, and dwarven seed doesn’t often bear fruit even among our own, but…”

“Ah, that.” She shifts a little on the log next to him, for balance or just from awkwardness he doesn’t know, and then she reaches over and filches the pipe back from his hand, quite without asking. “No need to concern yourself on that front, your madge,” she says, around the pipe stem. He’d almost buy her nonchalance if she’d just bloody _look_ at him. “Hobbits do well enough generally, but it’s not a concern for me.”

She seems certain, and never has he known her to be unsure of her own mind, but: “You sound sure.”

She exhales a plume of smoke through her nose— _like a dragon,_ he thinks, and then immediately regrets letting the thought cross his mind. “I have reason to be,” she says quietly, and it’s hard to tell in the dark, but he thinks she sounds almost wistful. “I’ll bear no man a child, Master Oakenshield, be he hobbit or dwarf. You needn’t give it another thought.”

“Good,” he says gruffly, then sighs to himself when it’s met with a raised eyebrow. Always he says the wrong thing, where Bree’s concerned. “I meant no insult. The wilds are no place for a child.”

“I think that was _almost_ like an apology,” she says, amused, “so I think I shan’t take offense. As it happens, I agree with you. The wilds aren’t much of a place for a hobbit, either, but here we are.”

He grumbles quietly to himself and steals his pipe back from her hand, since she seems inclined to hoard it all for herself. “You had your chance to leave, halfling. Too late to turn back now.”

She leans back on her hands, tilting her head back to look up at the sky. Moonlight tips silver down her cheeks, her chin, the short bare line of her throat, like water poured from a lover’s hand. And even though she’s sitting right next to him, she seems for a moment as if she’s no closer than the stars themselves.

“Too late indeed,” she says, and the smile tugs at the corner of her mouth is bittersweet. “I suppose I’ll just have to see it through.”

###### 

Balin leads them deep into the wilds, after that; eastwards and upwards, pressing ever further into the jagged, sprawling slopes of the Misty Mountains. It will take them nearly three months to cross, by Thorin’s estimation; two to the peak, and then another to make it down through the foothills and to the banks of the Anduin. Three months, when they’ve only four left to them. Without Elrond they would not have had the date, but still, their stop in Rivendell cost them very dear, indeed. But once they’re across the mountains they’ll be well shed of any pursuers, and they'll make their descent towards the main road, and make for the Tinker camps at the Old Ford. They'll buy ponies there and ride the Old Forest Road down to the river, and then purchase passage down the Celduin from the River-Runners coming down from Iron Hills. They can yet make it, if they try.

Still, the going is very rough indeed, even for the more experienced travellers among them. The path, such as it is, grows rocky and treacherous, washed out from years of snowmelt and the intermittent summer thunderstorms that roll down off the peaks before they can look for cover and leave them to shiver through the frosty mountain nights. They’ve supplies, at least, but they were meant for a weeks-long ride along the Great Road, and even with the grain for the ponies they’ll still need to ration carefully if they’re to last through the mountains. At night they can hear wolves howling in the distance, and small creatures eye them from just beyond the ring of the campfire, as if waiting for someone to drift away from the rest. Once into the foothills they find that their voices seem to echo among the rocks in ways that voices should not, and that the echoes seem to pull the chill north wind sniggering down from the peaks to bite and pinch at them, even through leather and furs.

It’s the last that worries Thorin the most. Damp clothes can be dried at the fire and empty packs filled by a good hunter, and there’s no beast alive that can stand against good dwarven steel. But there is a dark sort of feeling to these mountains, far worse than he remembers from his last excursion into these slopes. He can taste it like dust on the wind, and feel it in the chill that settles into his bones, like an enemy’s arm across his shoulders. The wilds have only grown wilder in these last long years, and his kind are not welcome here.

Which makes the valley even more of a surprise, the day they stumble across it. They're about three weeks out of Rivendell, and perhaps halfway to the pass, by Balin's reckoning, and they've been tramping through the woodlands for days, full of tangling vines and endless patches of bramble and far too little in the way of game. The forest seems to close heavy and unwelcoming over their heads as they walk, and it leaves everyone in a foul mood, tired and hungry and dispirited. And yet, when they stumble abruptly through the treeline late one afternoon, they find before them a little valley, blanketed in wildflowers and verdant green grass, with a squat little trapper’s cabin tucked away in the lee of the rock and a little stream trickling merrily down the middle, like something out of a picture-book.

“Is everyone else seeing what I’m seeing?” Bofur says, when the rest of them only stare silently downwards. “‘Cause I’m definitely seein’ _something,_ but-”

“It’s not just you,” Thorin says, but still he hesitates. He’s seen such tricks in the wildlands before; pools of clear water that turn into clinging bog if you try to step in, or beasts that run off the edge of a cliff when you chase them, or lights that lead you astray in the dark. Illusions work but rarely for dwarven eyes, and it’s hard for even fell magic to take hold of all the senses, but these mountains have a strength all their own, and he’d be a fool to underestimate it. “Can everyone hear-”

“The brook,” Dwalin says, catching his meaning as always. “Aye. And smell the flowers, too. If it’s a trick, it’s a better than any I’ve ever seen.”

Next to him, Bree makes a thoughtful noise and wiggles her bare toes in the grass. “It _feels_ real enough,” she says. “The land’s quiet. Healthy.”

He looks at her, eyebrows raised in question, and she shrugs a little defensively, hitching her pack higher on her shoulders. “Just a feeling.”

Hobbits were made for root and soil, just as dwarves were born to stone and blade. And she, out of all of them, was able to feel the warding magics on the Hidden Pass into Rivendell, he remembers. He shouldn’t discount her instincts.

“Thorin?” Balin says, when he stays silent. “Do we stay, or pass it by?”

Bree makes a little protesting noise at the thought of leaving, but she snaps her mouth shut when he looks at her sidelong. He hadn’t known she even knew _how_ to back down from an argument.

It’s the cabin that worries him the most. No smoke rises from the chimney, and there’s a hole in the roof where birds have been nesting. Abandoned, then, and likely for some time, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. Thorin remembers well enough what happened the last time they camped among a ruined homestead, and Gandalf isn’t here to save them from a troll’s cook-pot, should the valley’s former occupants abandoned it for reasons other than age or infirmity.

“We stay,” he decides, and has to bite back his smile at the windy sighs of relief from twelve dwarves and one hobbit. “But be _careful._ Anything could be waiting for us down there. Keep your blades ready, and check every nook and cranny before we settle. I don’t want any surprises.”

“Aye,” Dwalin grunts. “C’mon, lads, let’s split up. Faster we get this done, faster we get to find something to eat.”

The company fans out as they move down into the valley, but Thorin keeps Bree beside him with a single warning look. The last time she wandered off she got kidnapped by trolls. He’s keeping her firmly within arm’s reach, whether she likes it or not. 

A task that proves difficult, as she tries to charge off the second they get close enough to the cabin. He’s distracted, straining all his senses for the scratch of claws or the scuff of feet, but not so distracted that he doesn’t manage to take hold of her collar before she can take more than a couple steps. She jerks to a stop and glares at him, her hands tightening on her walking-stick like she’s imagining beating him over the head with it.

He wishes her luck with the endeavor. Dwarven skulls are thick; he knows which one will give way first, and it’s not him. “ _Not_ until it’s cleared, halfling. Do you not listen to a single word I say?”

“I wasn’t going far! Just that garden patch there, look, by the smokehouse-”

“Aye, where anything might be hiding inside,” he snorts. “ _No._ You know the meaning of the word, burglar, for all you refuse to listen.”

“I listen fine when someone’s speaking _sense,_ ” she grumbles, but she settles onto her heels and shakes herself crossly free of his grip, which is as close to capitulation as he can expect out of her. “It’s not like there’s going to be brigands hiding in wait, or something. What do you even think you’ll find?”

Mahal save him from the foolishness of stubborn halflings! “Something with lots of sharp teeth,” he says pointedly, “that would be happy to catch a soft little morsel like yourself for supper.” They scowl at each other for a moment, though Bree looks away first. “Why do you want to go poking the weeds so badly, anyway?”

She rolls her eyes. “Those aren’t _weeds_ , as you’d know if you’d ever bothered to set foot in a garden. Those are potatoes. Po-ta-toes,” she repeats, as if speaking to a particularly slow child. “Also known as _supper,_ if they’re ready to pull, which it looks like they are.” She folds her arms across her chest, smirking up at him. “Unless you _enjoy_ eating nothing but jerky and cram?”

His stomach chooses that moment to growl, reminding him that they’ve been on short rations for three days. Her smug expression widens, and he scowls down at her before looking over her shoulder. “Kili?”

“On it!” his nephew sings out, and slings his bow from over his shoulder. He pats Bree on the head as he passes her, heedless of her gasp of outrage. “Sit tight, burglar, I’ll make sure your supper is safe.”

“One of these days I’m actually going to box your bloody ears!” she calls after him. “The absolute nerve of that boy, I swear.”

Fili comes up to wrap an arm around her shoulders, and winks at Thorin over the top of her head. “There, there,” he consoles. “Kee didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You never do,” Bree says darkly, and Thorin leaves them to it with a shake of his head, heading off to help Kili.

“All clear,” his nephew reports, when they’re both done their search. “Dust, cobwebs, a bit of bird droppings. There’s tools and things, though no food. Whoever left here took their supplies with them.”

“Aye, same in the smokehouse. Likely they got too old for the trek back, and left it for the mountains to take.”

“Or us.”

Behind him, he hears Bree shout something in outrage, followed by the sound of Fili’s helpless laughter. _Mahal,_ it’s been some time since he’s heard her so much as raise her voice. Longer still since any of them have had much cause to laugh. “Or us,” he agrees. “It’s safe enough, then, for the burglar to pick her vegetables.”

“Thank the Maker,” Kili sighs. He grins when Thorin gives him a look. “Even _my_ cooking’s better than cram, and the burglar’s a sight better than that. D’you remember those roasted potatoes she made a few days before Rivendell? Or that _stew_ the week before that? Oh! Or maybe there’ll be fish in that stream!”

Thorin laughs and claps his nephew on the shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll think of something,” he says. “Come, let’s rescue your brother and see about starting a fire.”

###### 

It takes about an hour to get supper started, though most of that is spent wrestling with the absolutely enormous iron cook-pot Nori found in the smokehouse. It takes fully three of them to get the blasted thing filled and braced above the fire to boil, and when they’re done Thorin finds himself covered in rust and dirt and Mahal knows what else. Bree glances up from where she’s industriously digging up potatoes and pointedly sweeps him a look from top to toe, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. He glares back at her, then looks down at himself, sighs, and takes himself down to the stream to clean up.

She’s done with her digging by the time he gets back, and her helpers have all scattered, leaving her alone on the front steps. Her pail of potatoes is at her hip and she’s carving them up with more speed than sense, given the shoddy the edge on her pocket-knife, and dropping the chopped pieces onto the growing heap at her feet that’s piled on what he’s fairly certain is not her cloak.

He leans himself against the post, folding his arms over his chest, and nods down at the stolen garment. “Did Fili know what you’d be using it for, when he made you the loan?”

“You know, I think I quite forgot to mention.” She glances up at him from beneath her lashes. “Hopefully he isn’t _too_ upset about it.”

A chuckle tugs at his throat, all-unwilling. “Their mother would have just walloped them on the head with her sword,” he admits. “Your way is far kinder.”

She sniffs. “I prefer subtlety to direct action.”

“Aye, I noticed that,” he says solemnly, “what with all the shouting, and scolding, and threats of violence.” He meets her glare with a lazy smile, and she huffs and looks away. “Where is everyone, anyway?”

“Fili and Kili went off to see if they could find some game while we still have the sunlight,” she says, gesturing vaguely towards the edge of the forest with her knife. “Bifur and Bombur went upstream to try their hand with the fishing line, Dwalin went looking for bird’s eggs, and… I’m not entirely sure about the rest.” She returns to her cutting with a shrug. “Looking for firewood, perhaps. Or washing up downstream.”

“Or pissing in the bushes,” he suggests, just for the way she lifts her nose into the air with offended sensibilities.

“I’m sure I don’t know anything about that.”

“Right, because hobbits are above such petty concerns.”

“We’re certainly well-mannered enough not to _discuss_ them,” she sniffs, but he can see the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Goodness, what _do_ your mothers teach you?”

“Common sense, mostly. For example, _mine_ taught me not to cut with a dull blade.” He nods to her pocket-knife. “You’re going to lose a finger if you keep that up.”

“I’ve cut more potatoes than you’ve seen in your life, I’d wager,” she says mildly. “Tell me, O King, when you become such an expert in the preparation of vegetables?”

“Expert enough when it comes to the care of blades, Mistress Burglar. Have you never heard of a whetstone?”

“Add it to the list of things I forgot to pack, along with handkerchiefs and pruning shears.” She finishes with her potato and drops the pieces among its chopped-up brethren, picking another out the pail at her side. “I’ll make do just fine with what I have.”

He sighs and, cursing himself for a fool even as he does it, filches the blade from between her fingers before she can set to work on the next. “Kili will have my head if I let you mangle yourself,” he says, when she glares at him, and hands over his belt knife in its place. “Here, sharp enough and then some. Cut _away_ from your hand.”

“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” she retorts, and goes back to her chopping without so much as a thank you. He rolls his eyes and goes to fetch his whetstone.

They work in more or less companionable silence for a time, side-by-side on the steps. They're not often given to silence, him and the burglar, and what quiet they have had these past weeks has come less from peace than exhaustion. She hasn't even been inclined to argue recently, saving her breath for the climb and seeking her bed early in the evenings, and he's been starting to worry that she regretted leaving Rivendell after all, for all that she’s never said a word about it. She’s been homesick since the first, and they all know it; it seemed prudent not to remind her of the fact if they can help it.

Still, he'd rest easier if he could figure out why she's with them in the first place. Some latent, un-hobbitish spirit of adventure? Or stubbornness, perhaps, unwilling to go back on a promise once given? He's knows she's fond enough of their company, for all that she complains of their manners without cease, but it's not love that drives her to Erebor, as with Kili and Fili, nor duty or honor, as with him. It's certainly not the bloody treasure.

The question itches at him, worse still because he doesn't know if she knows any more than he. And if she has no reason to be here, then what's to stop her from leaving them if the going gets rough? (Well, rougher.) It'd be a dangerous walk for a lone soul back to Rivendell, but Bree with her quiet little hobbit-magics and penchant for sleeping in trees could make the trip unmolested, if she were careful and clever, and he knows that she’s both. The wilds don't push and pinch at her as they do the dwarves, for hobbits are loved by the land as much as they love it in return, and the woodlands won't harm her on her own. She could even make her way south to the main road, and join up with a Tinker caravan to take her west again—after all, without them she’d have no reason to fear orcish pursuers. On this side of the mountain, at least, she’s likely safer on her own than with him.

He doesn't want her to leave them—and not just because they yet need a burglar. He's gotten used to having her with them, with her fussy manners and her charm and her sarcasm, and he enjoys testing his will against hers, knowing that he can loose the chains of his temper and she'll push back twice as fierce, with no thought to his rank or authority. He’d miss that, if she were gone. And he still doesn’t know what use she'll be against the dragon, but she's quick, and she's quiet, and she's _here,_ which is more than he can say for any of his kin from Iron Hills. If this is how their journey has fared with a luckbearer, how much worse would it get if they numbered thirteen? 

But perhaps he's worrying over nothing. She seems more herself this evening then she's seemed in weeks, after all; perhaps it's merely exhaustion that stills her sharp tongue, not some deeper melancholy. If that’s the case, then this valley was a fortuitous find indeed. They’ll rest here tonight, fill their packs for the road, and leave again with full bellies and light hearts. Tomorrow will be better.

Eventually her pocket-knife is as sharp as it’s going to get, which is still not as sharp as good dwarven steel but enough to be going on with, at least. “Here,” he says, trading it back to her, “you’ll find that a far sight better than what you had.”

He watches her test the edge against her thumb—cautiously, so she has _some_ respect for blades, at least. “Very fine,” she allows, after a moment. “You do good work.”

“That?” he scoffs. “No. _That_ is a patch job, so you can make _some_ use out of that shoddy human craftsmanship. Just wait till we get to the mountain; I’ll get you a blade worthy of the name.”

“Well, I’d like to think I have at least one of those,” she says, patting the sword belted at her waist, “though I don’t think it’d be much use chopping potatoes. So maybe I’ll take you up on that offer after all, when we get to Erebor.”

_When we get to Erebor._ It rolls absently off her tongue, without any of the determination or longing of the rest of the company, but still he grins to himself as he wipes his belt-knife clean of potato innards and slides it back into its sheath. Maybe it doesn’t matter why she’s with them, he thinks, with sudden optimism. Maybe it just matters that she is.

On a whim, he holds out his hand. “Here, give me your sword.”

She gives him a suspicious sideways look. “You’ve already got one.”

“To _sharpen,_ if your ladyship so pleases. You obviously can’t be trusted to care for it.”

“I didn’t think it needed any,” she says, but she slides the sword from its scabbard anyway, passing it cautiously over to him, hilt-first. Dwalin gave her an earful about how to hold and handle the thing, a few days past Rivendell; it’s good to know that _some_ of it stuck, at least. “It looks plenty sharp to me.”

It is, actually, much the same as Orcrist, not that he’ll tell her as much. “Every blade needs care, burglar. You must keep the sheath oiled and the blade sharp, or it’ll turn on you when you least expect it.” He scowls at her from beneath his brows. “You should know that, if you’re going to carry one.”

“Don’t look at me, Gandalf gave me the bloody thing.” Still, she peers interestedly over his shoulder, her braid slipping to brush against his back as she leans in. “Said it was too small for anyone else.”

“Aye, more of a letter opener than a sword, really.” He smirks over his shoulder at her as he dampens the whetstone once more, realizing only belatedly that she’s still right at his elbow. He looks into her inquiring gaze, far too close for comfort, and then clears his throat and looks back down to sword in his lap. “Which makes it just your size, halfling.”

“You’re really quite astoundingly rude,” she observes, though she doesn’t quite manage to sound like she minds. “Why would the elves make a sword such as this, then? If it’s so small?”

Thorin tips one shoulder in a shrug. “Some swordsman train with a blade in their off hand, instead of a shield. Or it could be meant for backup weapon; I’ve made a few in my day. We call them _binzagr_ —’swordless.’ A weapon of last resort.”

“Which is just about the only time _I’d_ use it, so I suppose that's right enough." She sits back at last, picking up another potato from the pail. “So you've really made some like this?"

"Not _quite_ like this," he says, amused, "but aye, a time or two. Not often for dwarves. Most of my kind favor axes, or piercing swords, the better to cut through armor. _Kharshturkuzagr_ blades like this are more versatile—see, the long blade for cutting," and he holds it up, angling it so that she can see what she means, "and the point to punch through mail."

"Like Orcrist?"

"Aye, close enough, though Orcrist has only the one edge." He runs his fingers down the silky length of her little blade. "These blades were made for cleaving orc-flesh."

"Or tripping hobbits," she mutters. He gives her an amused look, and she huffs and looks back down at her work. "So how did a king learn how to be a blacksmith, anyway?"

"The usual way," he says, ignoring her use of _king._ She changes her mind on his title at least once a day, usually, and calls him whatever she feels like at any given moment; he’s given up arguing the point long since. "I was apprenticed under a master when I came of age, and learned my trade from her."

She makes a small grumbling noise in the back of her throat. "That's not what I meant and you know it."

He wants to laugh. "Oh, so you think a prince has no business sullying himself with trade?”

“Well,” she flounders, and scowls down at her hands when a hint of a chuckle slips past his teeth. “I mean, yes, I suppose. I thought kings and such were supposed to be too grand for the likes of that.”

It’s a common enough misconception. Often he’s met folk in the cities of Men who though he was lying when he gave his name, or putting on airs. He hadn’t thought a prince working for coin would be such a wonder when he had so very many mouths to feed, but mayhap the lords of Men are different. And certainly hobbits know nothing of royalty, aside what they’ve seen in their books and their stories. What would they know of dwarven honor?

“Not so for the sons of Durin. Craft is the root of everything we are, halfling. What kind of king could rule his people without understanding that? All of my line take their apprenticeship somewhere, though most don't bother with a mastery."

"But you did?"

“My mother wouldn’t hear of anything else. She was the head of the Jeweler’s Guild,” he explains, when Bree looks at him in surprise. “My sister followed in her footsteps, once we established ourself in the Blue Mountains. She’s young for it yet, but I don’t think any of the other masters wanted the honor enough to challenge her for it.”

She hums lightly. “And the lads?”

“Fili’s a musician.” _Just like his uncle,_ he thinks, but does not say. Frerin was only two years from attaining his mastery, when he fell to an orcish blade. Fili sounds very much like him when he sings, though Thorin’s always been careful to keep that thought to himself. “Kili has apprentice knots in both leather and silver—though he’s mostly worked with the caravans, over the past decade or so. His mother says it’s a waste, but he’s got a rare head for numbers. I got an earful from the merchants when they found out he was leaving for Erebor.”

“Kili?”

This time he does laugh, at the incredulity in her voice. “He likes to pretend his brother’s the bright one, but he’s just as clever. Not over-burdened with common sense, mind you,” he corrects, “but clever.”

“Too clever for his own good, more like.”

“Perhaps.” He glances at her sidelong. “And what of you, mistress? I know you’re no burglar. How do you spend your days?”

“Well, hiking around with a bunch of dwarves, at the moment,” she says, and sighs. “I’m afraid to say that I’ve lived a terribly useless life, by your standards. My father made his coin young, with some very wise investments, and my mother was born to money—and was dowered generously when she married my father, for she was always the favorite. I own my home, and a fair bit of the land around it; between the rent and my father’s investments, I have more than enough to live comfortably.”

A soft life, then, and an easy one, just as he's suspected. Thorin has a personal grudge against many such coin-lenders, quick to take advantage of dwarven misfortune and slow to relinquish their debts, but he doubts that Bree lived by such predatory methods. Hobbits don't have a greed of gold; enough for her to live comfortably would be enough in all.

Still, it lends a bit of an edge to his teasing when he puts his tongue between his teeth and says, “Ah, so you’re a banker after all.”

She tips her hand in a prevaricating gesture, the late afternoon sunlight flashing off her blade. “No, nothing so formal. I suppose I could have been, had my father married someone other than Belladonna Took, but then I suppose _I_ wouldn’t be here at all, so it doesn’t much matter either way.”

He blinks at her. “Your mother kept you from being a banker?”

“No, no,” she laughs. “My mother never stopped me from doing a blessed thing— _including_ several things she likely should have, considering the trouble I got into as a tween. It’s just... not done, is all. If it’s good enough for your parents, it’s good enough for you, that’s our way. Hobbits take family _very_ seriously,” she adds, lips twitching against a smile, when she catches the look on his face. “I was a bit rebellious as a lass, but I never went so far as all that!”

It makes sense enough, he supposes. Children generally follow their parents in the mountains, too, since most dwarrows learn their trade at their father’s knee, but there’s no _rule_ about it, not like she’s making it sound. Thorin himself is an exception—he was born for the crown, just like his father before him—but outside of the royal family, what reason could you have to shackle someone into the footsteps of their forebears? Some dwarrows are born to the stone, others to the blade; what difference does it make if your father lifted pick or axe, when it comes to the skill in your hands and the song in your heart?

He doesn’t say it—he doesn’t relish having his nose bitten off by a defensive hobbit—but he thinks that this halfling way of things is very strange, indeed.

“So what _did_ you do, then, if you weren’t to take up a trade?”

“Oh, travelled, mostly, when I was young enough that it wasn’t yet _too_ scandalous—and perhaps a little longer than that! And I took care of father’s business when he passed, of course, and looked after my mother until she followed him. Other than, I mostly gardened, or made food for the community pantry, or looked after the neighborhood children.” She spreads her hands in a shrug before picking up another potato, a wistful edge to her usually easy smile. “As I said before, it’s not such a bad life.”

It seems very small, to him, small and petty and _boring_ —but then again, he isn’t a hobbit. And she was made for softer things, their burglar; he’s known _that_ much since he first set foot in her home. Perhaps it was a good life, in the way of her people. Perhaps she was content before they tramped in and upended everything.

It’s not contentment that she feels now, that’s for sure. If ever he figures out what she _does_ feel, perhaps she’d be a great deal less unsettling.

“I don’t know, it sounds to me you’ve got occupations a’plenty,” he says, because he can’t bear the melancholy cast to her face, the way her gaze is fixed on some distant doorway, far to the west of here. It’s the first time he’s had her full attention in weeks, and he’ll not give it up so easily. “A gardener, a cook, and a nursemaid… Have I left anything out?”

“If you think I don’t know when I’m being insulted you’re quite mistaken,” she says, with a little sniff of offense, but the wistful look is fading, now, and she favors him with a look of great disdain. “I’ll have you know that I’m also a prodigious reader, with the largest collection of books in all of Hobbiton.”

“Ah, so a librarian as well!” He shakes his head, mock-sorrowful. “I’d no idea we had such an _accomplished_ personage here in our little band. Why, I myself am merely a prince and a blacksmith—it hardly compares.”

She rolls her eyes extravagantly, but he can see the twitch of her lips, and knows she’s biting back a smile for all she’s worth. “If you’re to make me think you humble, your madge, you’ll have to try a sight harder than that. Honestly, Thorin—as if you’ve ever been _merely_ anything in your entire life.”

His hands stutter on the whetstone for a moment before he resumes his work. “That sounded almost like a compliment,” he says lightly, to cover the lapse. “If you’re not careful, you’ll have me fainting from the shock, and then where will we be?”

“Looking like a right arse on the floor, most like,” Bree says cheerfully, and tips him a sideways grin. “Don’t worry, laddybuck. If I give you a compliment, you’ll know.”

_Good Lord, you are magnificent._

“I’ll… keep that in mind,” he manages, and ducks his head back to her blade before she can notice the flush crawling up the back of his neck.

The others trickle in over the next half hour or so, all with some sort of bounty for the stewpot. Bombur brings back a line of fish, Dwalin a pocketful of eggs, and Ori comes back with his brothers in tow, all of them carrying armloads of green things that are presumably meant for dinner, judging by the way Bree carries on about them. (Thorin does notice her surreptitiously separating out parts of the pile and kicking them under the steps, so he figures that they haven’t _quite_ gotten the hang of edible vs. poisonous. But if the burglar isn’t going to say anything, he won’t.)

Kili and Fili get pride of place, however, when they return with a roebuck strung on a pole between them, accepting the congratulatory backslaps from the others as their due. “It’s a good thing this place has a smokehouse already!” Gloin says, as Bifur pulls his skinning knife. “We’ll eat for weeks off this. Very fine work, lads, very fine work indeed.”

“It was all Kili,” Fili says with a grin, passing off the buck to more expert hands. “I just helped carry. _Maker,_ that smells amazing, there can’t just be potatoes in that pot.”

“What _isn’t_ in there might be an easier question,” Bree laughs. “We’ve enough for supper tonight and more, as long as no one gets too greedy.”

“I’ll protect it with my life.” Fili presses his hand to his chest, and bows over the pot, inhaling the steam. “Probably Kili’s life too, I’m that hungry after the- Wait a moment.” Fili slowly straightens, looking from the pile of soiled fabric at the bottom of the steps and back to the burglar. “Is that my bloody cloak?”

Thorin laughs to himself and leaves them to it.

###### 

They strike out early the next morning, just after dawn. Their waterskins are full and their packs are heavy, but it’s a good kind of weight and the company is cheerful with it, laughing and teasing and tussling as they form up into line and hike upward out of the valley. Thorin starts off at the head for the climb, but waits at the lip of the valley as is his habit, counting off the others as they pass and mentally checking off their gear to make sure nothing was left behind.

Bree is the last up the path, as always, grumbling to herself and picking her slow way up with much poking about of her walking-stick. She scowls when she comes around the corner and sees him waiting. “Must you always lurk around and gloat? I’m going as quick as I can.”

He's seen her move fast enough when something's chasing her, but he supposes they're not running that late. Yet. “Just making sure you don’t get left behind, halfling. It’d be easy to lose track of you.”

“Don't think I don't know that was a crack about my size," she grumps. "Your mother should have hit you over the head with her sword a few times, knocked some manners loose.”

“Believe me, she tried.” He folds his arms over his chest, trying not to smile as she turns her scowl to the boulder blocking her way. “I don’t suppose you’d like a hand?”

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” She hands him her walking-stick, then grabs the lip of the rock and hauls herself up with passable agility, her bare toes scrabbling at the ledge for a moment before she manages to surge upwards. He grabs her shoulder and holds her steady as she wobbles. “Did you not hear me say I had it?”

“You’re welcome,” he says dryly, and brushes a stray bit of dust from her collar before he hands her back the walking-stick. “Think you can try to keep up?"

"With such encouragement, how could I fail?"

But she doesn't move to brush past him, turning instead to look out over the valley. After a moment, he comes to stand next to her, the edge of his cloak brushing against hers.

"It's lovely," she says quietly. "Don't you think?"

The sun hasn't risen all the way past the eastern peaks behind them, and the land before them lies shrouded in mist, the grass still lightly dewed and sparkling in the hazy, half-formed light of dawn. The cabin lies a little to their right, the chimney still smoking faintly from the banked fire they left to burn out in the hearth, and the wildflowers along the stream are just starting to open their leaves and turn their faces to the sun.

"It's well enough," he allows.

"Do you ever get used to it?"

"What, the mountains?"

She gestures vaguely. "All of it. Finding places like this, and then just- leaving. Just like that. Over and over again."

He glances sharply over, but she's not looking at him, her gaze fixed on the view before her. "Eventually," he says cautiously. He doesn’t know what to do with this sudden turn to melancholy; something itches hot under his breastbone, and he has to fight not to rub at it. “I suppose I don’t really remember. I’ve been on the road more often than not for the better part of a century, halfling. You get used to anything, if you give it long enough.”

“You’ve been away from home a long time.”

He realizes, then, that she's not looking at the valley at all. Her gaze is trained on the mountain slopes beyond, and he knows that she's not seeing the dark shadow of the forest shrouded in mist, but instead rolling green fields, and roaring crystal rivers. _Toward Rivendell,_ he thinks, a chill sliding down his spine. _And towards the Shire._

“Longer than you’ve the span of years to count, burglar,” he tells her, and has to close his hands hard around the haft of his axe to keep from reaching for her. “And getting no shorter for every moment we stand around here.”

She utters a short bark of laughter and seems to shake free of her musing, looking back up at him with only a shadow of melancholy in her eyes. “Don’t worry, your madge, your oh-so-subtle hint has been taken.” A cold finger of wind slips through the rocks and whistles down around their feet, and Bree pulls her cloak tighter around her shoulders with an absent shiver. "The lads will be wondering where we are, anyway."

"Aye, they'll send us a search party soon." He inclines his head toward the path, his throat gone tight with worry. She'd seemed so much like her usual self yesterday, and he'd thought… But now he knows he was only fooling himself. "After you, mistress burglar."

"If you trod on my heels, I'll make you regret it," she warns, and sniffs as she brushes past him, the ends of her cloak wrapping around his shins for a brief moment before she's gone.

He falls in a few paces behind, ignoring the childish temptation to crowd close on her heels. He doesn't have the heart for an argument, anyway. _I suppose I'll have to see it through,_ she said, the night they left Rivendell, and he's sure she meant it. Bree isn't the sort to make promises she doesn't mean to keep.

But it seems a very thin shield indeed against the exhaustion drawn like graven lines around her mouth, and the terrible longing in her eyes when she turned her face west.


	2. Chapter 2

They're all in rough shape, the day they arrive at the western edge of the Giant's Pass. They were woken well before dawn when a snarling fight broke out just past the reach of the firelight, and though they could find no trace of man nor beast when they went to investigate, everyone was too on edge to go back to sleep. They're running low on supplies, and the air is thin and bitter from the altitude, leaving even the sturdiest among them winded. They're filthy, hungry, and exhausted—their hobbit especially, who leans on her walking-stick with dull eyes and shallow breaths, but in truth all of them are running at the edge of their endurance.

Which is why, in retrospect, he likely should have listened to Gandalf and waited for him at the mountain's peak.

In his defense, it isn't yet storming when they set out—although there _are_ clouds gathering over the peak, dark and heavy and fat with rain, so perhaps that's a thin excuse. Certainly Balin seems to think so, when Thorin gives the order to move out. "Are you out of your wits?" he demands, keeping his voice low so his insubordination can't be overheard by the rest of the party. "That path's fair dangerous on a clear day, and this is set to be anything but."

Thorin scowls at him over the straps of his vambrace. "What would you have me do? Stay here until we empty our packs, with no game to be found? Wait until hunger saps our strength and we can't cross at all?"

"Wait until the wizard catches up, at least," Balin says, undeterred by Thorin's temper. "Or had you forgotten that?"

"If he intends to rejoin us, he can find us on the other side of the peak." Thorin finishes tightening the brace, flexes his wrist to check the fit. "I'll not risk our quest on the whims of a wizard."

"You'll risk it more if you push forward!" Balin gropes for another tack, and seizes on one as Bree wanders by, all-unwitting to the argument taking place. "Think you the hobbit will make the passage intact? She has no experience with mountain paths."

Bree catches the tail end of Balin's gesture and frowns, then starts picking her way over to them with a cautious expression on her face. Thorin warns her off with a glare, then turns it back on Balin. "She's kept up well enough so far."

"Aye, with solid stone beneath her feet! This way is treacherous, Thorin. You know that as well as I."

"Excuse me," Bree says politely from his elbow. "But I can't help but feel this particular discussion involves me, somehow."

"She'll be _fine,_ " Thorin growls. "Won't you, halfling?"

She blinks up at him. "And now you've strayed perilously close to a compliment. What's this about?"

"We're merely concerned-"

"He thinks you can't make the pass."

Bree folds her arms over her chest and tips up her chin. "I won't slow you down."

Thorin shoots a triumphant look at Balin, who sighs and tugs at his beard. "That's _not_ what I was concerned about, thank you," he says heavily, but neither will he continue the argument, now that they've witnesses. Not even the burglar, who makes a sport out of flouting Thorin's authority at every turn. "Alright, laddie, we'll do it your way. But you should stay in the middle of the line, little mistress," he says, to Bree. "And my brother will be behind you every step of the way."

"If... you think it necessary," she falters. Her hands tighten a little around her walking-stick at the grave expression on Balin's face, and Thorin feels a snarl building in his throat.

"Wouldn't want to lose you at this late date," Balin says, dredging up a smile. "I'll take up the rear," he says, looking to Thorin over her head. "I presume you'll take the lead?"

"Aye." Balin nods and slips off, and Thorin scowls down at Bree, temper churning in his chest with no outlet after Balin's abrupt capitulation. "You'd best not hold us up, burglar."

It's not exactly what he meant to say, but it's too late to take it back; her pale, pinched face is already tightening down into a scowl. "I'll do my best not to disappoint your madge," she says frostily. "If you'd excuse me?"

She slips by him before he can make a response, crossing the camp to Dwalin and murmuring to him. Dwalin laughs and pats her on the top of her head, and Thorin winces as he watches—but she doesn't savage him for it, just shakes her head with a rueful half-smile and hitches her pack higher on her shoulders.

Thorin turns away with a growl and slings the strap of his shield over his shoulder. "We move in five!" he calls. "Stay close, stay ready, and this time tomorrow we'll feast on the eastern slope of the mountain!"

A ragged cheer goes up from the company, and Thorin smiles grimly to himself as he heads out to the mouth of the pass. The clouds loom darkly over him, but he sets his gaze on the path ahead and steels his heart. _Erebor,_ he tells himself. _This time tomorrow, I'll be able to see Erebor._

He'll let nothing stand in the way of that.

###### 

Hours later, Thorin lies awake in the damp cold of the cavern and thinks that he probably should have gone ahead and taken the first watch after all, instead of giving it to Bofur. There's no sense in both of them losing sleep, after all. He'll likely relieve him in an hour or so when the dog's watch starts, and let Dwalin catch some extra sleep in his stead. One of them should get some rest tonight, and it won't be Thorin, wretched and regretful and shaken as he is.

He almost lost them. Nearly half his bloody party, including his own youngest nephew, nearly gone in a slagging blink of an eye, and naught he could do but cling to the rock and scream Kili's name over the wailing of the wind, as if that would bring him back. And when somehow, miraculously, they were all unharmed by the titanic clash of rock and stone, he'd heard Bofur's cry of alarm and felt his relief melt away into cold, hard fear as he looked over to see Bree dangling from the barest of ledges, her bare feet kicking frantically above empty air.

She was so light in his grip, when he pulled her up to Ori's waiting hands. He remembers well enough the weight of her, back in Rivendell; narrow and light-boned she might be, but she’d felt sturdy enough then, spread across his hips and holding him in place with weight and will. But today he lifted her with a single hand and she felt like no heavier than Orcrist, even with her pack on her back and her letter opener strapped to her waist. And when Dwalin had pulled him up in turn, he turned to see her clinging desperately to the rock, rainwater plastering her hair to her forehead and streaking down her pale, hollow cheeks, her mouth open and gasping for breath, and it struck him then, just how close they'd come.

So no, he’ll not sleep tonight. Just now, it feels as if he won’t sleep ever again, though he knows that’s nothing but needless dramatics. He managed to sleep after the Battle of Azanulbizar, didn’t he? He even slept again after fleeing Erebor, though it was some number of days. There’s no tragedy too great to bear, not for a son of Durin. He hasn’t the luxury to be consumed by guilt and grief, because there’s always another day, another battle, another choice that only he can make. Tomorrow he’ll rise, and gather up his tired party and lead them onward through the pass, and he’ll put this night aside just like he’s had to set aside all the other miseries, great and small, over all the long years.

But oh, Mahal, how he dreads the thought of it.

He doesn't hear Bree gather up her things, nor pick her way across the cavern floor, but that's no surprise. Moving quietly is the one part of a burglar's arts where she's always excelled; he's never yet been able to track her when she wants to go undetected, and his ears are keener than most. So his sleepless night avails him nothing in the way of warning, and the first hint he gets that something is amiss is the scuff of Bofur's soft hide boots against stone as he sits bolt upright.

"Where d'you think you're going?" Thorin hears him hiss, and in the sudden silence that follows, he thinks hazily: _Gandalf?_ Surely the wizard couldn’t have caught up to them so quickly, could he? Though the storm has since died down, which means he’d make quicker time across the pass; if he was right behind them, as Balin said he might, then perhaps...

But before Thorin’s guilt can really build up a head of steam, he hears an equally low-voiced reply, coming from _inside_ the cave, and most certainly not belonging to any wizard Thorin’s ever met—or any dwarf, for that matter. “Out!” Bree snaps, and Thorin has to take a long, slow breath to keep from making any noise that would betray him.

“But Thorin said-”

“Do I look like I care what his royal highness has to say?”

“No,” says Bofur doubtfully, “but that’s about usual, for the pair of you, and I really don’t think- Wait. Why’ve you got your pack on?”

At this Thorin finally gives in to the urge to roll up a little onto his elbow—carefully, so as not to draw either of their attention his way—and peers through the gloom to the mouth of the cave, where Bree and Bofur are standing conveniently silhouetted in the moonlight, Bofur with his mattock held awkwardly between them and Bree with both hands clenched around her walking-stick. Her bare little chin is tipped up with preemptive stubbornness, and Thorin looks from that to the pack on her back and feels a chill spread down his spine.

“Why do you bloody think?” Bree hisses back, heedless of his witness to their argument. “I’m leaving.”

“What? Where?” Bofur actually turns to look outside, like she might just be going on a midnight stroll, but when she only looks at him, her mouth set into a thin line, his eyes go wide with realization, the whites shining in the moonlight. “Oh, bugger me, you’re tryin’ to go _home_.”

She winces, which is confirmation enough, and slowly, the reality that she _means to leave them_ starts to sink through into Thorin’s hazy, exhaustion-addled mind. She's not just wandering off with her usual lack of care, or even storming off in a fit of temper. She _planned_ this. She laid awake until she thought everyone was asleep, and then she crept past all her snoring companions and-

“Look, dear, you needn’t worry about me,” she tries to reassure Bofur, who stares at her like she’s gone entirely ‘round the twist. “I’m quite used to travelling on my own and I’m sure I’ll be fine, so you all can just continue on without any fuss-”

“Are you joking? Of course there’s going to be a fuss! You’re a member of this company, burglar, d’you think we’d just shrug and go on without you? You’re one of us!”

“But I’m not though. Am I?”

Her tone is almost conversational, but the roughness of her voice is not. Thorin sees Bofur go still with the same sudden, icy fear that floods his own chest, the realization that this isn’t some momentary whim, brought on by temper or fear or petulance. This is something she’s been thinking about for some time, days or even weeks. Since the valley, he thinks; maybe even longer. Did she lie awake in her bedroll at night and think of how she might do it? Did she waver, or had she made up her mind before, only to remember her friendship or her promise and talk herself back out? How many times did they almost lose her already, before it finally became too much?

“Thorin said I never should have come, and he was right, wasn’t he? I don’t belong here. I never should have run out my door.”

Bofur brightens with the air of a man seizing upon a sudden solution. “You’re homesick,” he soothes, “look, I understand, but I think if you’d just give it some time-”

“No,” Bree says flatly, and he and Bofur alike flinch from the terrible certainty in her voice. “No, you _don’t_ understand. None of you do! You’re dwarves, you’re used to, to this life, never settling in one place. Not belonging anywhere, while I-”

In the faint glow of the moonlight, Thorin can see Bofur freeze with the hurt that stabs through his own chest, raw and hot. _Do you get used to it?_ she asked him, before. _Leaving, over and over again?_ Mahal, he should have known then. And when he told her aye, that he remembered no other way—did she really think him _truthful?_ For all her months among them, has she truly not come to understand them at all?

Bree’s voice grinds to a halt at the look on Bofur’s face, and her shoulders slump in apparent penitence as she seems to realize what she’s said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“It’s alright, lass.”

Bofur is one of the kindest among them, Thorin knows; he’s felt the bite of exile as long as any, but still he manages to scrape up a smile that looks entirely genuine, where Thorin would likely be growling and stomping her around and end up throwing her out himself, like as not, when she snapped back at him in ill-advised temper. So really, it’s just as well that he’s back here, and Bofur’s the one to convince her to stay.

“You’re right enough. We don’t belong anywhere. Most of us never have. We don’t have a home waiting for us, as you do.”

_That… doesn’t sound convincing at all,_ Thorin thinks, and wonders if he should intervene.

Bree looks down at the ground, as if she can’t bear to meet his kindly gaze any longer, and never in his _life_ has Thorin wanted more to see a person’s face. “It’s all I have,” she says, so low he can barely hear her, her voice raw and strained. “I never should have left it.”

Slowly, as if he’s not quite sure of his welcome, Bofur reaches out to rest one hand on her shoulder. “I wish you all the luck in the world. I truly do.”

Bree manages a smile in return, putting her own small hand over Bofur’s to squeeze, and distantly, Thorin realizes that she’s actually going to leave. Bofur isn’t going to try to change her mind, and she’s not even going to stay long enough to say her farewells, just going to slip away like a thief in the night and never see them again. Like their cause means so little to her! Like _they_ mean so little, and he won’t let it end like this. He can’t. He pushes himself to his knees, ready to roll to his feet and chase her down, because if she’s going to leave them, then by Mahal she’s going to do him the bloody courtesy of telling him to his slagging _face,_ instead of trying to creep away like the burglar she isn’t and leaving-

And then Bofur looks down, a small frown of confusion creasing his weathered face. “What’s that?” he says.

Bree follows his glance to her hip, where the hilt of her sword seems to be gleaming faintly, as if reflecting the moonlight, though it lies in her shadow. Thorin frowns at it, frozen halfway to his feet as something tugs at his memory. _Blue,_ he thinks hazily, and didn’t Gandalf say something about the sword glowing blue in the presence of-

Bree pulls the sword from its sheath, and light floods the cavern, and Thorin remembers.

"Goblins!" he shouts, and lunges to his feet, his hand going to Orcrist's hilt. "Wake up. Wake up!"

But of course it's too late.

###### 

The run from the goblin caves leaves them all gasping once they reach the fading sunlight, leaning on their knees and gulping for breath. Dwarves are not meant for running long distances, as a rule, and most of them have been roughly handled by goblins and crushed by the corpse of their king, besides. They'll have to get moving soon—the light is fading low, and they don't have long before dark—and Thorin straightens to check on their company. Gandalf is already counting.

"...Bifur, Bofur, that's ten… Fili, Kili, that's twelve, and Bombur- that makes thirteen. Where's Bryony?" He spins around, peering confusedly at dwarf after dwarf in turn, as if waiting for Bree to step out and appear from the crowd as she always does. “Where is our hobbit?”

But Thorin can’t see her anywhere, and their burglar has never been able to hide from his keen gaze. He thinks back—did he see one of the others pull her from the wreck of the bridge? Did he hear her panting breaths behind them as they ran? _Mahal,_ did he even see her among them in the Goblin-King’s court? He wasn’t counting, true, and she would have been doing her best to escape notice, as a halfling’s sole mechanism for defense, but-

_Start with the youngest,_ the Great Goblin said, and they’d brought forth Ori. But goblins would have no knowledge of hobbits, this far east; if they’d seen her, she’d look like nothing so much as a very young dwarf to their eyes, and so if after capturing them and removing their weapons, they _still_ thought Ori was the youngest-

Then she wasn’t among them at all.

“Ah, curse the halfling,” Dwalin growls, heedless of Thorin’s furious calculations. He glares at Gloin, standing next to him. “Now she’s lost?”

“I thought he was with Dori!” Gloin yelps, which causes Dori to turn and glare at him in turn.

“Don’t blame _me!_ ”

Gandalf clears his throat and holds up the hand not wrapped around his staff placatingly. “Gentlemen, this isn’t helpful,” he says. “Who saw her last? Where was she?”

“I think I saw her slip away,” Nori volunteers, and Thorin goes very still. “Right when they first collared us. Don’t think they even saw her, little thing that she is.”

“What happened _exactly?_ ” Gandalf demands, as Thorin looks slowly to Bofur. The tinker spreads his hands in a shrug, his eyes dark with sorrow. “Tell me!”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Thorin growls, the truth of it sinking into his chest like a stone. It was one thing to sneak off on her own (though he would have shouted himself hoarse at her later, if the goblins hadn’t caught them) but to leave them behind when she saw them into danger…! “She saw her chance and she took it! She’s thought of nothing but her little hobbit-hole since she first stepped out her door.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to leech away some of his anger before he vents it on the undeserving. Mahal, for all her many faults, he’d never thought she’d show herself a coward. “We’ll not be seeing her again. She is long gone.”

He knows the words are bitter, but it’s bitterness he feels, like a black tar creeping down his throat. Bitterness, and exhaustion—and perhaps a little shame, though he’s loathe to admit to it. The truth is that he’s been none too welcoming of their soft hobbit, even after she had the right to claim greater courtesy from him, and for all her varied provocations, that blame is his to bear. That she never seemed to mind is no excuse; he knew that she was homesick, that she doubted her place among them, and it was his duty to assure her of her place. Instead he let their quarrels provoke him to unkindness she hadn’t earned—hadn’t he told her, this very eve, that she had no place among them? Apparently she’d felt his doubts more keenly than he ever knew.

And all of that matters not a bit of brass when measured against the fact that she _bloody left him._

And then, as Thorin is thinking dark thoughts and stewing in his temper and scowling impartially at his downcast company and the disconcerted wizard alike, he hears a voice from behind Balin proclaim, “You’ll allow me to disagree.”

Everyone whips ‘round in an instant, of course, varying expressions of doubt and delight on their faces, and who should it be but the burglar herself, leaning against a tree with her arms folded over her chest. Her pack and walking-stick are nowhere to be seen, and her face and hair are quite mussed and smeared with muck and rock-dust, but she seems to be whole, and has the absolute gall to seem amused at their cries of wonderment. “Sorry to disappoint, my dears, but I’m afraid you’re quite stuck with me.”

“Bryony Baggins!” Gandalf cries, half-laughing and looking as if his staff is the only thing holding him up. Thorin might, on pain of death, admit that he feels rather the same. “I have never been so glad to see someone in all my life!”

Bree laughs and straightens from her insouciant lean. “I have to say, dear wizard, that the feeling is mutual.”

She strides forward into the group, as cocky as ever, the infuriating creature—only to find herself ambushed by his nephews, who grab her from either side and set to hugging her so tight it must knock the wind clean out of her. “Bree, we’d given you up!” cries Kili, as Thorin feels his hands curl into fists at his sides, and Fili chimes in, “How on earth did you get past the goblins?”

“How indeed,” Dwalin growls, scowling suspiciously at Bree under beetled brows. “We only barely escaped with our lives.”

Bree pats Fili and Kili on the shoulder until they release her, and sucks in a deep, relieved breath, her little ribs heaving like a bellows. She steps smartly aside, looking like she's ready to dodge any further such attempts at affection, and tucks her fingers into the pockets of her tidy little waistcoat, which Thorin now sees is rent of all its fine brass buttons down the front. "I believe Gandalf mentioned," she tells Dwalin, still a little breathless, "that hobbits are good at moving quietly."

Thorin would protest this bit of sophistry—does she truly think such a thin excuse will be sufficient to explain her blithely wandering back to them through a place that nearly claimed all their lives once already?—but before he can say a word, Gandalf laughs perhaps a bit too heartily and says, “Ah, what does it matter, anyway?” When Thorin glances at him, he’s frowning thoughtfully at Bree, his free hand stroking his beard. “She’s back!”

“Well-” Bree temporizes, at the same time as Thorin snaps, “It matters!”

Her gaze snaps to him, consternation showing on her pale little face, and he glares back at her, folding his arms across his chest. “Twice this night you’ve left us, halfling, and I want to know-” _Needs_ to know, with a depth and fervor he can’t acknowledge even to himself. “-why _did_ you come back?”

Bree pales at the realization that he was a witness to her previous escape attempt (and thus, to her words exchanged with Bofur) but she doesn’t look away, even when Fili yelps, “Wait, twice?” Thorin holds her gaze, mutely furious and with some great unnamable feeling churning wildly beneath his breastbone, and after a moment her tight, drawn expression softens, into something almost, but not quite, like regret.

“Look, Thorin, I know you doubt me.” Her voice is soft, a little hesitant, but he hears every word as if she’s murmured them directly in his ear. “And you’re right! I often think of home, and often wish I hadn’t left it behind, but...” She falters a little, looking around at the ring of scowling faces, but then her spine stiffens as it always does, and she tips up her chin and clears her throat and continues. “Look, I don’t know how it is with dwarves, but among my kind, family is everything. We dig our homes to last, so that they may be passed down to our children, and their children after them, but I-”

She pauses to suck in a ragged breath, as if the words themselves pain her. Thorin watches her hand drift up to touch her stomach, and feels his throat close with a raw, hot ache as he realizes, all too late, what she’s about to confess.

“Well, I won't have any. An illness when I was young took my ability to bear." Mahal, he’d never know how much the words pained her, if it weren’t for the lines of sorrow graven into the corners of her desperately unhappy smile. “And so you see my hobbit-hole, little as it might seem to you, is all I have left of my family name. I have no brothers or sisters; there’s no one left of my father’s blood to follow me when I pass.”

Thorin thinks back to her home, the large (for a hobbit) dining halls, the multiple spare rooms, the oversized library stuffed to the brim with books, the children's toys carefully stashed away on a shelf in the sitting room. Quite a lot of space for one little hobbit, though he hadn't noticed that at the time. _It's a great deal of treasure your dwarves offer,_ she told Gandalf, that night in her smial. _And none of it matters a farthing against the home where my parents dug into the earth._

_Ah, burglar,_ he thinks, heartstick. Perhaps she isn't the only one who hasn't been paying attention as they ought.

She turns from the rest of the crowd, and speaks again directly to him, her eyes overbright but her mouth cut into a thin line of determination. “I can’t give my home to my children,” she tells him softly, as if willing him to understand. “But at least I have one. When this is over, I can go back to my books, and my armchair, and my garden. That’s the home my father built for me. That’s where _I_ belong.

“And that’s why I came back. Because you don’t have one. It was taken from you. And I will help you take it back, if I can.”

Thorin swallows hard and nods to her, unable to trust his voice in the face of the soft, open look she gives him as she speaks. He thinks back, a little helplessly, to the casual way she told him, that first night out of Rivendell, as if it wasn’t a secret that pained her beyond bearing. _It’s not a concern for me,_ she said, as if it meant little more to her than what sort of mushroom to fry for supper. He never could have imagined the pain she carried over the fact, how many years of practiced smiles she must have endured to say it so easily. And he can’t help but admire her bravery, to lay herself so bare for their judgement, when they’ve none of them left her with any reason to expect kindness of her soft places before—him, least of all.

And he means to tell her this; truly, he does. That he understands why she would leave them, and that he’s grateful she’s returned, and that _all_ of them are glad to count her part of their number, however long the road will carry them together. She needs to hear that, and even more she _deserves_ to hear that, and from him especially. He opens his mouth to say as much-

-and then they all hear the baying of the wargs. Azog. The Goblin King sent word to Azog, who must have been close on their trail, because he's here now. He's _here._

"Out of the frying pan-" he says, and looks to Gandalf.

"-and into the fire!" the wizard finishes. "Run! RUN!"

###### 

Thorin doesn't really remember the next hours very clearly. It all blurs together in his addled memory: the baying of the wargs, the flight through the forest, the dead-end cliff and the ring of fire. But one thing stands out clear, above all others: the sight of Azog the Defiler astride the White Warg, and his hateful words in his black tongue.

_Do you smell it? The scent of fear? I remember your father reeked of it, Thorin son of Thrain._

Thorin long ago made his peace with the killing fields at Moria, at least as much as he was capable. Their losses had been so heavy, and his grandfather’s death only another stone among thousands his grieving heart had to carry, but at least he could rest at night knowing that Azog was dead. That he had avenged the death of his king, and led what remained of their forces to safety, if not to victory. Nobody could take pride in what happened in that battlefield, but at least the line of Durin would endure.

But his father’s disappearance always haunted him, for all that the others gave him up for dead. Even as he brought the ragged remains of his people to safety in the Blue Mountains, saw them settled into new-carven halls and prospering in mining and trade, he could never it go, chasing every rumor of a long dwarf that reached his ears. Dís begged him to set it aside, to focus on what family they had left, but still he searched, although it never turned out to be Thrain.

And now he knows why.

He doesn’t remember making the choice to attack Azog, though he gets an earful about it later from Balin. Maybe there was never any choice to make. It’s very clear to him in that moment that they’re going to die here, all of them, snapped in a warg’s jaws or smashed from a great height, and if this is to be his summons to the halls of his fathers, then by Mahal he is going to _take that orc down with him._

It doesn’t work out that way.

The first strike from the White Warg is enough to addle him, but he gets his sword and oakenbranch shield up for the second pass. Azog's mace blow to the face, however, knocks him out true as anything, and he's barely awake enough to feel the crunch of pain from the white warg's jaws around his shoulder and ribs. When he hits the rock he loses the breath in his body as well. The world goes black around the edges as he lies, nearly unconscious on the stone, and all he can hear is Dwalin screaming his name, the crackle of the flame, Azog's laughter…

...and a shout of pure primal fury, as something small arrows into the orc who stands above him. There comes a wet crunch of a blade through flesh, and then Azog roars with rage as the same small figure comes to stand in front of him. The last thing he sees, as his eyes slide closed, is a long copper-gold braid gone true red in the reflected light of the fire, and the blue glow of a small sword against the dark.

Then he knows no more.

###### 

Generally, when Thorin wakes from illness or injury, it's slow, his addled brain trying to protect him from whatever sent him into the black in the first place. This time, though, he careens back into consciousness with a jolt, his ribs a stabbing lick of pain all down one side, his shoulder screaming in protest as he rolls to a seated position. He opens his eyes to see the wizard and his kin clustered around him, all anxious eyes and relieved smiles, but there's one face not in the crowd.

"The half-" he croaks, before falling to coughing. His ribs protest this strenuously, and he wraps his good arm around his middle to cushion the pain. Dwalin wordlessly hands him a waterskin, and he uncorks it wincingly, taking a deep draught. This time, when he speaks, his voice sounds less like a rusted hinge. "The halfling?"

"It's alright," Gandalf says, in what he probably thinks is a soothing tone. "Bryony is here, she's fine. Not a scratch on her."

Thorin doubts this quite strongly. He remembers her standing against Azog, her dinner-knife of a sword the only defense against the albino monster, and while he doesn't know how they got from there to this high, windy place, he can't believe that she could escape such a fate unharmed, soft creature that she is. He thrusts one hand up and finds Dwalin's in it almost immediately, hauling him to his feet. He staggers briefly, and Kili is at his side to steady him, but he immediately shakes free of his nephew and spins until he can see their burglar, standing a little away from the others on the rock.

Gandalf spoke truly, hard as it is to believe. She's smeared with soot and dirt, and her clothes are rent and torn, her tidy little waistcoat gaping open, but she's otherwise unharmed, standing hale and hearty before him. One lock of hair is falling free of its bindings and dangling crookedly into her eyes, but she doesn't seem to notice, being focused on peering at him anxiously.

"You," he says, his voice a low growl. " _You._ "

"Um, yes," she says, after a quick glance side to side to make sure he couldn't be talking to anyone else. "Me, I suppose."

"What were you thinking!" Thorin nearly shouts. She backs up a step from the force of it, then checks herself with a nervous look at the ledge behind her. "You nearly got yourself killed!"

"Uncle..." Kili chides, softly, but Thorin takes no notice of him. His entire world is narrowed down to Bree's grimy face, her wide startled gray eyes, and the trembling corner of her mouth. She so easily could be dead in the warg's jaws, instead of standing before him now.

"Did I not say that you would be a burden?" he says, more softly. The shake in her lip grows stronger, and there is a suspicious shine in her eyes. "That you would not survive in the wild and that you had no place among us?"

At that, Bree straightens her spine, and a familiar glare settles onto her features. "You did rather, but-"

He crosses the distance between them in two great strides and wraps her small, precious figure in a tight embrace. "I've never been so wrong in all my life," he says in her ear, and she gives startled squeak before relaxing into his grip.

Behind him, he distantly hears the others cheering, but he takes no notice, his attention too busy taken by the woman in his arms. He feels her arms come up to tentatively wrap around his shoulders, and then after a moment her small hands fist tightly into the back of his coat and she buries her face in his collarbone. " _Thief,_ " he whispers into her tangled hair, and he feels her hiccup under his hands before she leans away. Her face is tear-stained, and he wincingly lifts his left hand to smear away the tears before the company can see them. She gives him a trembling smile, and then he steps back, his hands on her shoulders, afraid to let her go entirely.

"I'm sorry I doubted you," he says, and it's likely the most sincere thing he has said in his life.

"No, it's alright," she says. Her shaky smile firms up into a more familiar rueful grin, and she glances over his shoulder to share it with the rest of the company. "I would have doubted me too. I'm not a hero or a warrior or…" She pauses, chuckles a little, though it sounds wobbly. "Well. I'm not even a burglar."

"Well, you stole my life back from the jaws of death, little thief, so I'll not begrudge you the title," he says. He can't seem to look away from her, but his hands drop away from her shoulders, realizing that everyone is staring at them. She grins up at him, though, and he feels rooted to her smile, even as the world wobbles a little as his battered body makes its opinions known about all this dashing around.

"Not anymore, anyway," she corrects, and he husks out a painful laugh, wrapping his left arm around his ribs once more.

"No. Not anymore.”

As if his words are some kind of signal, the rest of the company cluster close around them. Kili insinuates himself under Thorin's elbow before he can stagger, because his youngest nephew is more clever and attentive than Thorin gives him credit for, and Fili takes on the duty of hugging the stuffing out of their burglar for both brothers. Bree gives another squeak of surprise, but by the time Fili sets her down and Bofur immediately picks her back up, she's laughing, her head thrown back as she pounds on Bofur's back to let her down. He complies, and everyone huddles together, slapping backs and butting foreheads. They're gentle about it with Bree, but she grins as she taps her skull against Bombur's, against little Ori's, and then even butts heads heavily with Dwalin, though she looks a little dazed after. Bofur wraps one arm around her narrow shoulders and calls, "Let's hear it for our burglar!" and their cheers echo around the rock.

Thorin notices Bree's bashful-proud grin go slack at the corners, though, as she stares at something over his shoulder. He nudges away from Kili's supporting grip and sways closer to her, reaching out to catch her hands in his. "What is it?" he says urgently.

She blinks up at him, as the others fall silent around them, and then she takes his shoulders and turns him around. "Look," she says, low. "Thorin, look."

The breeze stirs up the early morning fog, and he sees what caught her attention. " _Mahal_ ," he breathes.

"Is that what I think it is?" asks Fili quietly.

"Yes, my lad," Gandalf says. "Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. The last of the great dwarf kingdoms of Middle-Earth."

"Your home," Bree says, and without a thought, Thorin sweeps her under his free arm and pulls her to his side as Bofur did a moment before.

"Our home, hobbit, even if you never stay a night between her walls," he corrects. "You've earned that much today."

She doesn't take her gaze from the mountain. "That sounds good," she says, very quietly.

A bird cheeps, and flits by them, too fast to catch the color of the wings, but Óin is quick with a prediction, as always. "A raven," he says rapturously. "The birds are returning to the mountain!"

Another bird trills, off to their left, and Gandalf chuckles rustily. "That, my dear Óin, is a a common blackbird." They all turn to him, and he smiles slowly. "Also known as a thrush."

Even better news, considering the words on the map, though he won't be so disloyal as to say it out loud. "We'll take it as a sign," he says instead, and smiles at them at all. "A good omen."

Bree sighs and leans her head against his shoulder, without the clever rejoinder he would have expected. It's his bad shoulder, but he doesn't begrudge her the pain of it. "I do hope the worst is behind us," she says.

"When have we ever been that lucky?" Kili quips. There's a _thwap_ as someone smacks the back of his head. "Ow!"

"Unfortunately, my nephew is correct," Thorin says. Reluctantly, he frees Bree from his grip and turns to face the rest, but she doesn't stray from his side. "We've still got a long road ahead of us. Let's start by getting off this damned rock." He looks around, suddenly curious in a way he hadn't quite got around to, before. "How did we even get here, anyway?"

"Eagles carried us," says Dwalin, looking deeply annoyed at the universe. He dislikes heights more than most, and is currently refusing to look too closely at the edges. "Giant ones. Would they'd placed us a little closer, or at least a little lower to the ground. I say we take the day to find a campsite, hole up, get some supplies laid in. We can move out tomorrow."

Thorin briefly considers the matter of the eagles, and then decides that he'll just have to ask someone about it later. He's not entirely sure he wants to know. "That sounds like a good plan. How stand we for our belongings, anyway?"

"Buggered," Nori says laconically. "Most of our packs were lost down in the goblin caverns. We've naught but the clothes on our backs, the weapons in our hands, and far too many bruises between us."

"Including bugger-all for food," Gloin agrees. "Might need to take two days, to hunt and dry some meat for travelling."

"One day and no more," Thorin says. "We'll have to hunt on the way. It looks like we've been taken a decent ways past the mountains, but Azog and his pack will be hot on our tails. We can't afford to lose our lead." The sun is not long into the sky, but it's going to take at least a couple hours just to get to the ground, and it might take longer to find somewhere safe to hole up once they're down. "Let's get moving."

Dwalin herds him to the middle of the line as they prepare to descend the rock, and Thorin doesn't try to protest. Someone, at some point in time, carved a long spiral of steps down the steep rock face, but even without climbing his body isn't going to be happy with him. He has a vague sense of someone working magic on him before he awoke, but whatever sorcery Gandalf spun to hold his battered form in one piece is going to be sorely tested by the hike. Having Dwalin at his back, however height-frighted his friend may be, will be a reassurance.

Kili and Fili, Thorin notes with amusement, do much the same with Bree. Fili, as the sturdier of the two, climbs down first, and Kili sends Bree between them, so they can keep an eye on her. She looks a little exasperated by their fussing, and truthfully, if the rock face were more sheer, she would be better suited than any of them to make the descent, but as it is the steps are overlarge for his kind, much less for her. The edges are also distressingly inclined to crumble, and all of their company have slipped and skidded at least once or twice by the time they reach solid ground at last.

Thorin pretends not to notice Dwalin kneeling and giving a prayer of thanks with his palms pressed to the dirt, and turns instead to the wizard, who is looking annoyingly composed even after their scramble down the rock. "I don't know how far we've come," he says, low-voiced. "Which means I don't know the area. Should we stay here, or ford the Anduin and try our luck on the other side?"

Gandalf _hmm_ 's and clutches his staff with both hands, considering. "I think we should be safe enough here for a day,” he says, after a moment. “It’s a large enough island, I should think, to forage what you need, and the warg pack will be several days behind, at least. Tomorrow will be soon enough to dull your scents in the river."

"Good enough," Thorin decides, and cups his hands around his mouth. "LISTEN UP!" he roars, and manages not to wince at the press of his ribs. Mahal, he hopes they're only very badly bruised; even his kind can't move fast on broken bone. "We'll camp here, and built a fire on the stone. Kili and Ori, you two are our best hunters, bring us back some game. Nori, get some traps set up, hopefully we'll have a few rabbits to roast tonight. Bifur, get the fire going. Bombur, do you still have your fish hooks on you?"

"Aye, and some wire for the line," Bombur nods. "If someone can cut me some poles?

“Think I can manage that,” Gloin says, fingering the haft of his axe. “And some logs for the fire, while I’m at it.”

"Good. Any fish you catch, we can smoke through the night, and take with us on the morrow.” He sighs. "Too bad none of us know the land here. I'll not trust our stomachs to unknown greenery on top of everything else."

"I can help there," Bree says unexpectedly. She nearly flushes under the sudden glances of the company. Quick to decry an insult, their hobbit is, Thorin thinks with some amusement, but bashful of her virtues. "I'm well-read when it comes to growing things, and not just from near the Shire. If I can borrow a couple of you, I can show you what's safe quick enough and fill our bags before we leave."

"We don't _have_ bags," Dori laments. "That's half the problem."

"Well, there _I_ can be of some use.” Balin reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little wrap of oilcloth, which he unrolls to show a pair of needles. "Dwalin and I can stitch a couple crude packs, if one or two of us have a cloak left to sacrifice."

"Take mine," Bree says immediately, and suits action to word, slinging the cloth from around her shoulders and handing it to a startled Balin. "It's all but shredded anyway."

Thorin tries to follow suit, but Balin stops him gently. "You're hurt the worst of us, laddie," he says. "And that coat is worth more than a thin wool cloak against the cold. Share with the burglar, if it makes you feel better."

Thorin, after a quick glance exchanged with a blushing Bree, decides that discretion is the better part of valor and changes the subject. "Dori, Fili! Go with the hobbit. She'll tell you what's safe to pick." He glances over at Bofur, eyes the sturdy pick-end of his mattock. "Can you hollow out a basin near the fire? We'll have stone soup to eat while we stay here, and we can roast and dry the rest of what we bring in to eat on the road."

Bofur grins. "Aye, and I think Bombur has some salt on him. That'll help with the jerky."

"Excellent." He looks over at Gandalf. "You-"

"Will be scouting," the wizard says calmly. "I know this area only a little more than yourselves, and I would like to avoid any more unpleasant surprises."

It's pointless to argue with a wizard and it's a good idea besides, so Thorin just nods shortly and doesn't protest. He looks around, trying to figure out if there's anything else that needs doing. Everyone is busy with tasks, the small clearing at the base of the rock already beginning to resemble a camp from the beehive of activity. _Fire, fish, forage…_ "What am I forgetting?"

" _Me_ ," Óin growls, from right behind him, and Thorin nearly jumps out of his skin in surprise. "And you're not to assign some chore for me, laddie, as I've already my work cut out for me to get you fit for march tomorrow." Thorin opens his mouth to protest, but Óin cuts him off with a disgusted wave of his hand. "No use arguing, I've seen how you're clutching at those ribs. Take a seat, and I'll have a look."

Thorin considers arguing anyway, for the sake of it, but in the end he decides that it's not worth the effort and Óin is right, besides. They've still got a long road ahead of them, and if a little doctoring can get him moving easier, then it's time well-spent.

He shrugs out of his coat and takes a seat on a nearby bit of rock. He gives a resigned wave to Bree as she collects her assigned helpers and moves off to the woods. She catches the gesture and gives him a sympathetic smile, then turns and disappears into the woods, Fili and Dori at her heels.

"Do your worst, sawbones," he tells Óin with a sigh, and closes his eyes.

###### 

Bree and her helpers got back around noon, with armloads of green things. "We found some berry bushes, too," she tells him as they deposit their spoils on a relatively clean bit of rock. "But those will be another trip, with something to hold them. They're a little overripe, but we could all use the sweet."

"It can keep till after lunch," he tells her firmly, and tugs on the cuff of her trousers. "Sit. We've got a fine stone soup going. One of the lads even carved out a bowl or two, so you needn’t burn yourself trying to eat it.”

“No, I’ll only have to swallow splinters instead, I’m sure that’s much better.” But she takes a seat on the rock next to him, so he’s willing to count it a victory. “You don’t need to coddle me, you know. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

"My kind can handle a live coal without being burnt," he tells her, somewhere between amused and fond. Stubborn to the last, that’s their burglar. "I don't think hobbits have quite the same tolerance. There's no shame in it."

“First I've heard you say something like _that._ ”

"Well, you have proven yourself in rather dramatic fashion.” She makes a disdainful noise at the back of her throat, and he turns his head to grin at her. "You _did_ save my life at grave risk to your own, you know. Even someone with, hmm, 'rocks where common sense should be' is I believe the phrase you used-"

"I stand by that.”

"-can respect a deed such as that.” He shrugs and leans back on his elbows. "I'm not the only one who'll be changed around you."

"You don't seem very changed to me," she says, eyeing him sideways. "Aside from your sudden willingness to shed clothing."

He wouldn’t call it _willing,_ exactly. Óin snarled at him until he gave in and stripped to the waist, so the grumpy old bastard could wrap his ribs in strips of cloth that he strongly suspect used to be someone's cloak and dab his various cuts with ointment that stung his nose, then ordered him to sit here and stay still. It's bothersome to watch his men do work while he sits idly by, but the couple of times that he tried to get up and join them someone shouted him down, which is a disrespect that he would not have borne under other circumstances. And truthfully, the warm autumn sun does feel good on his skin. If only he was clean.

"It's not the first time," he says, scratching idly at a healing scrape on his side, and is startled by her sudden snort of laughter.

"I thought we weren't talking about that."

It's not until he looks over at her and sees her eyes sparkling with mirth that he catches her meaning. "I _wasn't_." Her eyebrows arch upwards, and he scowls at the insinuating lilt to her smile. "I was talking about _bathing,_ you filthy-minded hobbit."

"You had no complaints on that front before, laddybuck," she says cheerfully, but mercifully doesn't pursue that line of teasing, and instead falls back onto her elbows with a sigh. "Ah, bathing. I haven't been properly clean since Rivendell. And my soap got lost with my pack, too, blast it all."

Or maybe the change of subject wasn't so merciful after all, as now he can't help but think about the last time they bathed—especially not with the distracting sight of her sprawled out next to him, the top two buttons torn from her shirt and her thin little neckerchief knotted so loose it might as well be gone. Her fine throat is tipped up to the heavy summer sun, and it's all too easy to imagine leaning over and pressing his mouth to the sweet little hollow of her pulse, just under her jaw. He didn't have the time to properly explore, before, and he's sure there's a dozen such delightful spots for him to find.

_Ah, but you won't be finding them, my lad,_ he tells himself. Even if she were to invite him to try—which she most decidedly is not—he's not entirely sure he'd be up for the task. Dwarven desires are formidable once engaged, but hunger, privation, and a bad beating or two are more than enough to take it out of any man.

"Well, I don't know about the soap, but I think we're all planning to get clean today, while we have the time," Thorin says, determinedly keeping his mind from straying to places it has no business wandering. "We can find you a spot away from the others, to satisfy your missish sensibilities."

She looks at him like she finds him overly simple. "Thorin, if you think I'm under the impression you'd let any others see me naked even if I _was_ willing, you're very much mistaken," she says patiently. "You growled at Dwalin when he put an arm around me a few days after our tryst—and all he was was doing was showing me the correct way to hold my sword."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he lies.

"Ah, don't worry, my dear. I didn't take it personally." She's not even looking at him, her face tipped to the sky with her eyes closed, and somehow that makes it worse. "Even hobbits have heard about the famed possessiveness of the dwarves. I didn't read too much into it."

Thorin manages to snap his gaping mouth shut before he can inform her that _generally_ speaking, dwarves only feel possessive around things they already own. Thorin knows damn well that Bree isn't his to claim in almost any sense of the word, but there's a difference between knowing a thing and _knowing_ a thing, and the latter is far harder than the former. Deep in the bones of him, he already thinks of her as one of his people, or her attempt to leave the night before wouldn't have struck him so deeply.

But even he, with all his 'princely pride,' as she likes to grump, would never be so arrogant as to try and stake a greater claim.

It's not that he's so idiotish to think she doesn't hold some affection for him; he's stubborn, not blind. She's certainly been well-disposed toward him at least once in the past, and if he were forced to put a word to it, he could even call the thorny affection between them _friendship._ That's miracle enough, to have forged such a thing with the prickly burglar; he'll not burn himself trying for more. Even if they survive this quest, which is seeming a more variable outcome every day, she'll only ever ride away from them at the end, and he'll not put himself through the pain of that for love or gold.

"Well, good," he says, only a little belatedly. "Don't get any ideas."

She grins over at him and draws a little X over the breast of her jacket before letting her hand fall to her side once more. "Cross my heart."

The sight of her fingers curled against her belly reminds him of things left undone, and he clears his throat, pushing himself up to sit upright on the rock. "Although, while we're on the subject…"

"I thought we weren't?" He scowls down at her, and she laughs and flaps a hand at him encouragingly. "No, no, don't let me stop you."

_Would that you would, mistress._ "I... owe you an apology."

" _Another_ one?" She purses her lips, trying and failing not to smile. "The other one you gave me was so splendid, I don't know that my poor heart could take a second."

He doesn't return her grin, because she deserves more than jokes from him for this, and after a moment her own smile fades. "Honestly, Thorin, what's so important that you haven't already said?"

_Many things,_ he thinks. "I didn't have a chance to say, earlier," he says roughly. "About your-"

As before, he can't quite bring himself to say the words, and instead gestures vaguely with two fingers toward her midsection. She catches his meaning well enough, and smiles only a little bitterly.

"Ah, it's alright. It's an old hurt. I took a bad infection when I was on walkabout once, and the doctor said that the fever caused scarring on my insides." She shrugs, elaborately casual. "Likely one of the reasons I never married."

"How old were you?" Thorin asks softly. He doesn't want to press on wounds badly-healed, but he would know more of her, if she's willing.

She purses her lips, reaching backwards in memory. "Not quite of age, but close. Thirty-one, I think? Almost twenty years ago, now. Longer than it seems, sometimes—and others far shorter than the truth."

"Loss counts time in its own way," Thorin agrees quietly. "Some mornings I wake up and think I left the mountain only yesterday."

She turns her head to look at him at last, and they share sad smiles, touched by the memory of old griefs. "I am sorry, in turn, for trying to leave before," she tells him, when the moment has passed. "It was poorly-done of me, to storm off like a child for a few cross words."

"You could have said goodbye, at least," he suggests, with a shadow of a smile to show he's only jesting, but she shakes her head, still somber.

"No, I shouldn't have left at all," she says definitely. "This company, this journey—this is where I want to be." She flashes him a slightly rueful smile. "It it's any consolation, I likely wouldn't have made it very far before scrambling like a fool to catch up before I was left behind. It would have been a very ignominious return."

She's carefully not touching on the things she said to Bofur, though she surely knows that he overheard every word, and he decides to let it be. Perhaps not all mistakes need to be revisited and chewed over like a hound with a bone; after all, he has her vow from last evening, too, and worth all the more for the hurts that preceded them. He understands her a little better now than he did before, and he thinks she might be able to say the same: with that, at least, he can be content.

"No more than I, when I would have chased after you in a fit of temper—and nearly fallen off the mountainside, most like, the way our luck is going." If the burglar can peel open old hurts as a salve to his pride, the least he can do is scrape up some of the humility she’s frequently accused him of misplacing in response. “Which I’m sure would have been very amusing, though not much in the way of penance for driving you off.” He spreads his hands in a shrug, hoping his expression speaks his apology for him. “I spoke poorly last night, out of temper and fear, and it was unworthy of you. In my defense, I’d no inkling you’d take my words so to heart.”

She gives a little huff of a laugh, looking away from him and down to her toes. “Then you haven’t been paying attention." It's quiet enough that he could almost think she didn’t mean for him to hear, but he has no chance to decide on his reply before she's shaking her head sharply and looking back towards him, a rueful smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “If I must give credit to anything, it’d be to the near-death experience rather than your temper. I’ve seen plenty enough of the latter, in these past months, and considerably less of the former. Nor have I forgotten that you jumped down the rock without a second thought in order to pull me to safety.”

“Oh, I-” he says, but she shakes her head, stilling his protest.

“You want to make much of me risking my life to save yours, but you did the same for me, just yesterday. And what poor gratitude I showed, running off in a fit of pique! It was really the least I could do, to repay what was owed.”

He clears his throat, which seems to have gone tight for some reason. “Then I’m glad to say there’s no debt between us.”

She can’t know that he’s using the ritual words, a declaration of friendship and loyalty freely given—but she seems to catch the meaning just the same, from the way her smile goes a little soft around the edges. She scoots just a touch nearer, until the sleeve of her jacket brushes against his bare forearm, so close to hers on the rock.

“Until next time, at least,” she corrects. “Next time I save you, _then_ you’ll owe me.”

He wants to laugh at her cheeky tone, the warm, confiding twinkle in her eyes. No one else teases him as she does; no one else would dare. Perhaps he would have missed that most of all, if she’d left them. Thankfully, that’s now an issue for a much later time, with months of travel and a dragon between now and then. He’ll take what he has and be grateful.

“Not,” he tells her solemnly, and feels his mouth twitching up into a smile, all-unwilling, “if I save you first.”

Her elaborately grave expression gives way at nearly the same moment as his, and they share a grin, perfectly in charity with each other and the world around them for one perfect moment.

It's broken by Gloin, shouting up from the campfire. "Oi, lovebirds! Lunch is ready!"

Thorin ignores the lovebirds comment, for the sake of his sanity, and gathers himself to stand, as he’s been sitting long enough. He finds himself immediately pinned by three sets of eyes: Gloin, Óin, and Dwalin, who’s sitting near the fire with a needle and the tattered remains of Bree’s cloak in his hands. “Did I say you could move yet?” Óin demands. “Let the hobbit get your food. The two of you can share the bowl.”

“I’m sure they can,” says Gloin, in what he probably thinks is a low voice, and Thorin can’t help a quick glance over at Bree, who is blushing slightly and glancing warily at him in turn. When he merely raises an eyebrow, she snorts and rolls to her feet.

“I hadn’t thought dwarves so prudish. One hug and they suspect all?”

“I think it’s more the fact that you’re smiling,” Thorin informs her. As far as he’s concerned they can tease as they like, as long as it doesn’t start to bother her. Hobbits have odd notions about privacy, and he’s never sure what strange things will cause her to stumble. As for himself, well, teasing’s fair enough if it’s true, and it’s not as if there’s a courtship to be interrupted, so he’ll not begrudge the company their fun. It’ll die down once they’re on the road, anyway. “Normally you look like you want to dump a chamber pot over my head.”

“You should consider yourself lucky, then,” she says with a wink, “that none of ever been close at hand,” and ducks away to retrieve their food before he can respond. He rolls his eyes at her back, but he knows that the foolish, betraying smile is still on his face.

###### 

Bree slips away into the woods again after lunch, ignoring his pointed suggestion that she take one of the others away with her as a guard, and returns a few hours later with a bowl full of blackberries and two very red cheeks.

Thorin tips his head back and grins lazily up at her, his annoyance at her penchant for sneaking off fading in the face of her grumpy, disconcerted blush. "Stumbled over the bathing party, did you?"

"You could have warned me," she growls, depositing her spoils on the rock safely away from the fire.

"I'm sure someone would have, if you'd taken someone with you as I'd asked.” She scowls at him, but he’s not going to belabor the point further when she’s clearly run into nothing more aggressive than a few thorn bushes. He snags her hand as she wanders closer and turns it over, examining the scratches on the back of her fingers. "Nor would you have gotten these, with sturdier hands to do your picking for you.”

“Blackberries always take some payment in blood; they wouldn’t taste half as sweet otherwise.” She doesn’t snatch away from him, somewhat to his surprise, just leaves her soft palm in his and regards him with some amusement. “And the day I trust a _dwarf_ to play gardener in my stead is the day I crawl into my hobbit-hole in shame, never to show my face again.”

“I think I should be insulted,” he says, and lets her hand drop before the moment can linger into awkwardness. “Óin has more of his foul ointment, if you'd like something for those."

"No, thank you, you smell enough like an alchemist's shop for the both of us." She crouches down at his side, regarding the sooty scratchings on the rock in front of him with some interest. “What’s this, then?”

He smiles a little. “I’m surprised at you, burglar—are you telling me that the owner of the ‘finest collection of antique maps in the Shire’ can’t recognize a map when it’s in front of her?”

“Rude,” she chides, though it’s more absent than anything else. She tilts her head to study the crude design Balin sketched with the burnt end of a stick. “This is the land east of here?”

“Did the Anduin river give it away?” He nudges at the long sinuous line of charcoal with the toe of his boot. “Yes. We’ve been… discussing which path to take towards Erebor.”

She glances at him sidelong, a hint of a smile quirking the corners of her mouth. “The sort of ‘discussion’ that involves shouting?”

“Nay. Only you would dare such discourtesy against a son of Durin.”

“If you don’t enjoy shouting, laddybuck, you should try rather less of it yourself.”

“I don’t shout, burglar, we’ve had this discussion before.” And then he recalls how that discussion ended, and clears his throat, moving rapidly onwards before she can comment. “Originally we planned to stop at the Tinker encampment around Old Ford, and buy ponies and supplies to see us through the Greenwood. But according to the _wizard,_ " said with all the irritated disdain he can muster, "even the Old Forest Road has been unsafe for travellers, and we will have to take the long road north to the Elven Gate."

Bree reaches out and runs her fingers along the scalloped edge of the black smear that represents the Greenwood, heedless of the way her fingers smudge with charcoal. “And there’s still those orcs to consider, aren’t there? That big fellow didn’t seem like the type to just give up and leave you be.”

Thorin shifts on the rock, his right hand curling and uncurling at his side as if around the hilt of his sword. _Azog._ How, out of all of the death and ruin wrought on the killing fields of Moria, _Azog_ was the one to return... It defies all understanding. And his _father-_ No, he can’t think about it. He _won’t,_ or he’ll think of nothing else, and they still have so very far to go.

“No,” he says, and Bree starts slightly at the gravel in his voice, eyeing him sidelong. He clears his throat and tries again. “No, he will not. They will be hunting us. Even mounted on wargs, it will take some time to make their way through the foothills and longer still to pick up our scent once more—which is why they will try to outsmart us, and go to where they think we will be.”

She gives a wordless noise of understanding in the back of her throat. “South to the main road.”

“They know we have no food and no supplies, and that we’re likely wounded besides; where else would we go? But if we press _north_ -” And here he points at the upward curve of Mirkwood’s edge, where a winding path has been hastily sketched out through the forest. “We could make it to the Elven Gate before they can catch up to us. And Gandalf assures me,” he adds, somewhat sourly, “that the way is still protected by elven magic, even if the other is not. They will not be able to follow us there." He spreads his hands in a shrug. "It's a long way to go on foot, but at least we'll lose our pursuers."

“That's assuming the orcs don’t circle around and catch us at the other side." She gestures toward the northern edge of the forest. “They have to have figured out we’re going to Erebor, right? Wouldn’t they just wait for us when we come out?”

It’s nothing he hasn’t considered himself, but having her ask it still makes him grunt in annoyance and poke at the map with the toe of his boot. If one of the others questioned him so…

...then he would likely listen to their counsel with a great deal more willingness, he admits with a sigh. He can't begrudge the burglar something that any idiot who can read a map would be able to see, just because he wants so very much for her to agree with him.

“Mayhaps,” he concedes, if grudgingly. “But orcs are fearful, suspicious creatures; they would never consider facing down something as great as a dragon, and it would be unthinkable for a party of our size to do so. More likely they think we make for the Iron Hills, far to the east of the Lonely Mountain, to meet with my cousin Dain. When they can't find us to the south, they’ll likely head the other way around the wood, and hunt along the banks of the Carnen instead.”

She gives him a very steady look. “And if Azog proves more clever than you give him credit for?”

He exhales, too short and sharp to be called a sigh. “Then that is a bridge we will cross when we get to it. I cannot plan for every avenue at once.”

“Humility? Coming from you? Never did I think I’d see the day.” She grins at him nonetheless, rocking back on her calloused little heels and letting her hands dangle between her knees. “If it’s worth anything, though, it sounds to me like you’ve got the right of it.”

“I’m glad your ladyship approves,” he grumbles, but there’s a warm glow in his chest at her approval, all the same. “In any case, it’s already been decided. Tomorrow we ford the river, and head north with as much speed as we can muster.”

“Ah, so if I want to get clean I’d best get it done today, is that it?” She drops backwards with a thump to sit next to him, her knobby little knees pulled to her chest. “I suppose I’m not allowed to do _that_ alone, either.”

"Just because you _can_ slip away without being noticed doesn't mean you should." And he promises her with a darkling look that she'll not be so successful a second time, regardless. "These _are_ the wildlands, and they only grow wilder from here. You did well enough with your sword earlier, I'll be the last to deny it, but even the least among us is better suited to keep you safe."

She gives him a sidelong look from beneath her lashes. "And so you'll stand guard while I bathe, is that it? Blade at the ready?"

The smear of insinuation in her voice is undeniable, as is the gaze that flickers down his bare and battered torso to his lap. He straightens, feeling a flush burn down the back of his neck and helpless to do aught to stop it, and wraps an arm around his middle, telling himself even as he does it that it's not a defensive maneuver. "It needn't be me, if you'd rather one of the others."

"Oh no, I think your sword has done quite well enough for me so far." She glances over at him, then chuckles low at whatever expression is on his face. "Peace, Thorin. I'll stop teasing, if it bothers you so."

_Bother_ isn't exactly the word he would use. _Vex_ would be a better one; _fluster,_ perhaps, or _unsettle._ It's not irritation he feels at her teasing; not like before, when he was sure she couldn't mean it. He knows now that she's far from immune to his own rougher charms—but in a way that makes it almost _worse,_ to know that if he were to press her, if he were to turn and cup his hand around her jaw and tip her face up to his, she might-

"It's… fine," he says, and clears his throat. "Do you want to go now?"

"Mm, in just a moment." She leans back on her palms and tips her face up to the late summer sunshine, closing her eyes with a sigh of satisfaction that he feels down to his bones. "You know, I do believe it's been a rather fine day."

About to point out all the things that have gone wrong for them in the last day—the thunder battle, the goblins, the wargs, _Azog_ —Thorin looks instead to her contented little face and remembers that technically speaking, all of those things happened _yesterday._ _This_ morning, the first thing he did was take her into his arms, and he can't say the day has gotten worse since.

"Yes," he says softly. "I suppose it has."

She opens her eyes a crack and glances over at him, heavy-lidded and smiling. "And I suppose we're not very likely to have many more like it, in the weeks to come."

"Also true," he agrees, smiling back and powerless to stop it.

"And so it might be argued," she says, with a sidelong smile that he would think almost _shy_ if he did not know her better, "that this would be a good opportunity to, hmm, take advantage of our rare moment of peace and quiet while we have it?"

It takes a moment to divine her meaning, but when he does he sits bolt upright, nearly gaping at her. "You can't be suggesting-" He stops, remembering that the _last_ time he said she 'couldn't be suggesting,' she was, in fact, suggesting—and then somewhat _more_ than suggesting, when he proved a little too slow on the uptake. He clears his throat. "I mean-"

"No pressure, of course," she hastens to assure him. There's the slightest hint of a blush starting to color her bare little cheeks, and he stares at it, helplessly charmed. "I know it was supposed to be just the once, before, and the road isn't any place for those sort of carryings-on, but- I mean, if you're interested…"

"I might not be of much use," he warns, but he can hear the eagerness tugging at the back of his throat, and from the way her hesitant smile gets a bit bolder, she likely can as well. "I'm not at my best just now."

"Mmm, I think you'll do just fine. I'm more than happy to take care of all the work, if that's a worry."

He just bets she is. "And we'll have to be quick."

She grins at him and sidles a little closer on the rock. "If you'll recall, that's definitely not a problem for me either."

Yes, he recalls all-too-well. Durin's _beard,_ she's a temptation; unexpected and unlooked-for, and all the more compelling for it. It's a terrible idea, of course, far worse now even than it was in Rivendell, with a half-dozen reasons at least for him to lean over, and press a kiss to her forehead, and give her his most sincere regrets. _Just because she came back once doesn't mean she's going to stay,_ he reminds himself, but it's hard to care about that just now, with the pulse of warmth starting to spill into his belly, slow and inexorable like magma breaking free of the rock. It wouldn't be what he wanted in Rivendell, the chance to taste and touch and _linger,_ but-

"I suppose I'd be the fool you're so fond of calling me if I were to pass up an offer like that," he says lowly, and reaches out to trace one calloused finger along the river's-run of vein under the thin skin at the back of her hand, watching her face as he does so. Her breath catches a little in her throat, the black of her pupils dilating a little to swallow some of the pale grey rim. "The others will be back soon, though. They'll wonder where we went."

She turns her hand over, pressing their palms flush together and winding her fingers through his. "Why would they wonder?" she says, with a devilish smile. "We're only going to bathe, after all."

"Oh, are we?"

"Eventually." She gives his hand a squeeze and then slides away, rolling to her feet and then looking down at him, bouncing on her heels a little. "And if you're very lucky, I might even wash your back when we're done."

He laughs a little and climbs to his feet a little more slowly, taking care not to aggravate his aching ribs. "It's just as well. At the moment I'm probably lucky to reach past my own chin."

"The thought did occur." She reaches out and snags his hand in hers once more, unselfconscious and happy, and smiles breathlessly up at him. "I found a place earlier, a little past the bramble. If you're willing to follow someone else's lead for a change?"

He turns to catch her chin with his free hand, ignoring the twinge of protest from his shoulder, and tugs her mouth up to his. She makes a very agreeable little noise of surprise against his lips, and then and even more agreeable noise of pleasure when she opens her mouth to the press of his tongue. Her hand creeps up to his hip, steadying herself as she leans up on tiptoes, and for a moment Thorin just stands there, kissing a beautiful woman with the sun beating down on his bare shoulders like he hasn't a care in the world.

And then he breaks away, brushing a last, light kiss against the lush lower curve of her lip, and gives her hand a squeeze. "I think, just this once, I could be persuaded."


End file.
